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Beijing - Authorities have given the green light to begin construction of a magnetic-levitation train route in Zhejiang province on east China's seaboard in 2010, three years later than planned, the official Xinhua news agency reported Monday.

The section linking the eastern cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou was approved by Beijing in March 2006; however, protests by residents over radiation concerns had put the project on hold.

Construction of the Shanghai-Hangzhou line was expected to start in 2010 and be completed by 2015 at a cost of 22 billion yuan (3.14 billion US dollars).

Hamburg - Even older human brains are adept at learning new tricks, according to research by German scientists who studied a group of over-50 subjects learning new skills - such as juggling.

A team led by Janina Boyke, from the department of systems neuroscience at the University of Hamburg, undertook a test project to teach 69 healthy German men and women between the ages of 50 and 67 to juggle.

In this case, juggling involved keeping three balls in motion for a minimum of 60 seconds - a challenge even for young and agile minds and bodies.

Berlin - Tuition and fees usually take a heavy toll on every student's budget. Rent and cell phone demand another chunk, and then there are still costs associated with computers, especially the software.

The standard tool for the job, Microsoft's Office suite, costs around 460 dollars. Graphics students may also require expensive applications like Adobe's Creative Suite for a cool 2,400 dollars. Yet there is some relief in sight: Many manufacturers are now offering rebates.

It's possible to save up to 85 per cent in this way, a test by the Munich-based Chip magazine recently showed. Creative Suite 3 Design Premium was made available for 

Bonn - Several security holes have been discovered in Firefox and other software from Mozilla. The Thunderbird e-mail program and the Seamonkey program suite have also been affected. Users should update their software as soon as possible once patches become available, recommends the German Federal Agency for Security in Information Technology (BSI) in Bonn.

Hamburg - Software for uninstalling programs does not work completely reliably, a new test has shown.

For that reason computer users are advised to stick with the uninstallation function included in Windows and to reach for special software only if problems arise, according to Hamburg-based magazine Computer Bild. The magazine tested five programs and compared the results with Windows' Add/Remove programs function.

Only one piece of software, priced at 19 dollars, even received the grade of "satisfactory."